The proposed work seeks to analyze through unit electrophysiology processing of taste information in the amygdala and substantia innominata of the awake behaving rabbit. We have developed a technique for studying taste electrophysiology that satisfies many of the conditions used with acute-type preparations but that provides a way of studying taste-processing in a more natural neurobehavioral context in which taste input leads to ingestive reactions as indexed electromyographically. Our technique permits intraoral injections of specified volume of the four putative basic types of taste stimuli (sucrose, acid, saline, and quinine) by means of fine hypodermic tubes linked to separate pump systems. Both sucrose and saline are highly palatable to the food-deprived rabbit while acid and quinine are unpalatable. We propose to examine the coding of information about different types of tastants and the neural intensity functions which they generate and then to try to tease apart discriminative and motivational significance of the neural reactions by studying conditional properties and hunger-satiety relations of the taste-responsive units. These neurobehaviorally oriented analyses of ventral forebrain target structures of the taste system are part of a broader "systems" analysis of gustation that will attempt to define key dimensions of operation of different parts of the taste system and ultimately the way in which taste leads to sensory, hedonic, and appetitive modes of reaction. To set the stage for the behavioral electrophysiology, analyses will be carried out with electrostimulation of brain structures to elucidate taste projections and to define input-output connectivity patterns of cells engaged in taste processing.